Vista has slowed down, how to speed up?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alex McFarlane
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A

Alex McFarlane

Dear All,

I have a trusty laptop running Vista Ultimate with 2 Gb RAM.
When I first got it it ran programmes like Mozilla Firefox and the Office
Suite rapidly, opening the apps quickly when required.
Over time programmes began to slow down upon opening. I also tried the new
Windows 7 which was OK but had a few drawbacks.
So I bit the bullet and re-set my machine back to how it was when it was
new.
Reloaded my apps and data files, speed returned.
Now it's slowing up again after only 4 months.

Question: do these proprietary programs like Norton etc actually clean up
the computer and restore its trusty speed in opening apps?
If so, which one have you found to be the best in practice?

Please advise

Regards

Alex McF
 
Alex McFarlane said:
Dear All,

I have a trusty laptop running Vista Ultimate with 2 Gb RAM.
When I first got it it ran programmes like Mozilla Firefox and the Office
Suite rapidly, opening the apps quickly when required.
Over time programmes began to slow down upon opening. I also tried the new
Windows 7 which was OK but had a few drawbacks.
So I bit the bullet and re-set my machine back to how it was when it was
new.
Reloaded my apps and data files, speed returned.
Now it's slowing up again after only 4 months.

Question: do these proprietary programs like Norton etc actually clean up
the computer and restore its trusty speed in opening apps?
If so, which one have you found to be the best in practice?
Click to expand...

First of all, get rid of 'Norton' and replace it with something more
suitable, that may even solve your problem.

Harry.
 
It was my sad experience to find that when running Vista, my memory was not
returned (as it should be) when I closed a lot of programs. Worst offender
was IE. I have now gone to 7 and no longer have that problem. Try opening
your Task Manager and watch what gets returned to your system. The more you
use, the slower your system gets.

I agree with Harry. Definitely dump Norton. I wouldn't even take their
free suite with my pc. There are a number of tweaks that you can make, but
there are sites devoted to it. Everything on my laptop runs faster and
better than it did on Vista, starting with how many processes it runs by
default.

I hope this helps.

Bill
Knowledge is the only resource in the world that multiplies when shared.
 
Dear All,

I have a trusty laptop running Vista Ultimate with 2 Gb RAM.
When I first got it it ran programmes like Mozilla Firefox and the Office
Suite rapidly, opening the apps quickly when required.
Over time programmes began to slow down upon opening. I also tried the new
Windows 7 which was OK but had a few drawbacks.
So I bit the bullet and re-set my machine back to how it was when it was
new.
Reloaded my apps and data files, speed returned.
Now it's slowing up again after only 4 months.

Question: do these proprietary programs like Norton etc actually clean up
the computer and restore its trusty speed in opening apps?
If so, which one have you found to be the best in practice?

Please advise

Regards

Alex McF
Click to expand...

Are you regularly cleaning out your temp files: cache, cookies,
windows log files, etc. I use CCleaner and clean everything out daily.
Another thing that will really slow you down for sure is if you don't
defrag on a regular basis. You can set up your system to defrag itself
using MS tools or there are many third party tools that you can use
also that are a bit faster. I like defragler.

Gregg
 
Dear All,

Thanks for all this, keep the replies coming.
Please note: I have never had Norton installed since the rebuild.

Regards

Alex McF
 
Dear All,

I have a trusty laptop running Vista Ultimate with 2 Gb RAM.
When I first got it it ran programmes like Mozilla Firefox and the Office
Suite rapidly, opening the apps quickly when required.
Over time programmes began to slow down upon opening. I also tried the new
Windows 7 which was OK but had a few drawbacks.
So I bit the bullet and re-set my machine back to how it was when it was
new.
Reloaded my apps and data files, speed returned.
Now it's slowing up again after only 4 months.

Question: do these proprietary programs like Norton etc actually clean up
the computer and restore its trusty speed in opening apps?
If so, which one have you found to be the best in practice?
Click to expand...


Have you checked to see what programs and services are loaded to
automatically start up? You need to look past the startup menu option
to the reg keys that start programs/modules as well as in services.msc
to disable junk you don't need. There are programs that will help with
the startup keys or you can use msconfig to do most of it.
 
Alex. If you follow this advice you'll be posting back here with a ton of
new problems. Registry *cleaners* do waaaaaaayyyyyy more damage than good.
As has been posted here tons of times, registry cleaners are nothing but
snake oil. Now, having said that, you can download and run a program called
CCleaner, as someone else mentioned. Google it. Do not run its registry
fixer. Just run the cleaner. It will find and remove all temp files,
cookies and any other garbage it finds. Then open a command prompt as
administrator and run "sfc/scannow." After that's completed open the log
and see if it found anything major it couldn't repair. If there were no
errors then search for and run Defraggler, as someone suggested and defrag
your drive.
 
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